Dude, dude, DUDE, dood, duude…

It sounds ridiculous but the word “dude” is a significant part of my social identity. Dude defines me by generation, possibly social class, and almost certainly my suburban upbringing. Moreover, all of the dude commercials and anecdotes are true. Zits ran an emotion board showing various reactions accompanied by a different spelling or font of dude. I clipped it from the Sunday paper and hung it on my wall.

I regularly interact with a set group of people who are older than I am. I can’t tell you who they are, but they are from different backgrounds, have different interests, and different levels of social awareness. Generally when I interact with these people I’m dressed in a button-down shirt, slacks, and shined shoes. It isn’t a church or recreational group, and generally I see them after 8 am and before 6 pm approximately 5 days a week. They used to take offense when I would call them dude regardless of gender or station. But when I refused to relinquish my word, they began to look the other way. 

Generally, I modify my speech to suit those around me; for instance, limited swearing in front of children and at church. But dude isn’t just a word. It’s tied to my identity. Slack-jawed and sad as that sounds, I like it. Granted, I’m a 27-year-old with a master’s degree who still reads comic books, so my taste may not be the best social barometer.

For most of us the word “dude” came from popular culture and filled a simple need: all purpose highly expressive pronoun. My sister can be dude, my boss can be dude, close friends, odd relations, strangers, anyone at a sporting event regardless of their side, the jerk on his cell phone at the movie theater — all dude. The pronunciation can shift to imply a variety of meanings on the part of the speaker, such as: stop that; turn that off; please pass me (the chips); how could you do that (with my ex in my car); that’s very interesting; I would enjoy that (all-you-can-eat buffet); really, are you sure?; very nice; I’m sorry for your loss; and the list goes on.

While the MLA and other professional groups are beating their collective heads against the wall trying to find a genderless pronoun that doesn’t sound or look terrible and can be added into the language without a great deal of trouble, “dude” is slipping by them. 

It’s simple. It’s already integrated. It’s working fine. It’s enough to make me want to shout, “Dudes, the answer is dude!”

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